Intonation in English: Statements, Questions, and Tonality

Posted on Jan 23, 2025 in Pedagogy

C2 Statements: Default Tone and Finality

C2 statements typically have a default tone that conveys confidence and finality, indicating a complete thought.

Statements: Non-Fall Intonation

Statements with a non-fall intonation (\/) have not reached the end of the message. These incomplete statements may imply something without explicitly stating it. They can also imply contrast, express reservation, indicate a statement is true under certain conditions, be tactful or polite, sound tentative when correcting politely, or make a partial statement, suggesting something is true to some extent but not completely.

Declarative Questions

Declarative questions use the grammar of statements but have the intonation of questions (/ , \ , /). Uptalk (/) is a tone where a traditional fall (\) was used. They often sound like “pardon-questions”.

Yes-No Questions, Independent Rises, and Tag Questions

Yes-no questions (/ , \ , / , \) and independent rises combine declarative questions and uptalk with short responses, encouraging further conversation. WH-questions are similar to yes-no questions, but a fall may be used for a businesslike or serious tone. Tag questions (/) ask for information (“have they?”). A fall is used when expecting agreement. They can be attached to exclamations (“What a surprise, wasn’t it?”) or commands (“Open the window”).

Exclamations, Commands, Interjections, and Greetings

The default tone for exclamations, commands, interjections, and greetings is an exclamatory fall (\). A rise (/) may be used for an encouraging effect. For routine acknowledgments, a fall-rise (\/) can be used. When calling someone by name, a rise-fall (/ , \) is common. Greetings typically use a rise (/), while farewells use a fall (\).

Quiz on Intonation Patterns

Quiz: Identify the intonation patterns for commands (\), exclamations (\), routine (/), tonic syllable in uptalk (/), yes-no questions (/), WH-questions (\), polite corrections (\/), echo questions (/), interjections at the end of the utterance (/), exclamatory yes-no questions (\), calling by name (/;\), farewells (\), and adverbials at the beginning (\;\ /).

C3 Tonicity: Placement of the Nucleus

The nucleus, or the main stress, typically falls on the stressed syllable of or near the last important word, usually towards the end of the intonation phrase (IP), provided it is important for the meaning.

• Content words are accented according to dictionaries.
• Function words are determined by grammar, and the nucleus typically ignores them.
• Compounds behave as single words, with the main lexical stress on the first element (e.g., “KEYboard”).
• Default: The nucleus falls on the last lexical item.
• Double-stressed items behave like a phrase, with both elements being accentable (e.g., proper names like “John LENnon”, names of roads and public places like “Oxford AVenue” but “OXford Street”, names of institutions like “Lola hoTEL”).
• The first element refers to place or time (e.g., “evening MEAL”).

The Old and the New Information

New information is accented, while old information is de-accented. Synonyms of old information are usually de-accented. Hypernyms include something already mentioned, while hyponyms add new information by being more specific.

Focus

• Broad focus: Everything is brought into focus, and the nucleus goes on the last lexical item (neutral tonicity).
• Narrow focus: One part is selectively brought into focus.
• Contrastive focus: A type of narrow focus where the nuclear accent draws attention to a contrast the speaker wants to make. Any word can be accented for contrast, even a function word. The contrast may be explicit or implicit. A pattern of contrastive focus may be lexicalized.

Empty Words and Pro-forms

Empty words have very little meaning of their own, and pro-forms substitute for a phrase or clause. They are not accented, even if they are the last lexical item in the IP.

Vocatives

Vocatives, such as calling the name of the person you are talking to, stand outside the grammatical structure of a sentence. They are accented partly based on their position.

Reporting Clauses

Reporting clauses, when following quoted words, are usually out of focus and are part of the tail of the IP. If they are long, they may be broken up into more than one IP.

Adverbs of Time

Adverbs as lexical words are accented. Adverbs and adverbial phrases of time and place are unfocused when at the end of an IP, even if they contain new information, and form part of the tail (e.g., “She’s coming to DINner tomorrow”). However, they are accented when the sense of the verb would be incomplete without the adverbial (e.g., “Put it on the TABle”). Alternatively, they may bear the nucleus in a separate IP with a fall-rise pattern: “She’s coming to \DInner | toMORrow”.

Phrasal Verbs and Prepositional Verbs

• Phrasal verbs (verb + particle) are lexically double-stressed, with primary stress on the particle (e.g., “How are you getting ON?”).
• Prepositional verbs (verb + preposition) are mostly lexically single-stressed, with primary stress on the verb (e.g., “May I look at them?”). But: “Guess who I bumped into the other day?”.
• Two-syllable prepositions can also be stressed.

C4 Tonality: Disambiguating Structure

Tonality can disambiguate the structure of a sentence.

• Common sense functions similarly in all languages, with breaks tending to coincide with syntactic boundaries. For example, they signal syntactic structure, playing a similar role in speech to what punctuation does in writing: “The flowers are purple, yellow, and green.”
• Sometimes, breaks and punctuation marks do not coincide.

Choosing the Size of Intonation Phrases (IPs)

• Each IP presents one piece of information.
• There is considerable freedom in choosing the size of IPs.
• Each IP typically lasts between 1 and 2 seconds.
• Each IP includes one focus.
• IPs tend to be shorter in spontaneous conversation.
• IP size varies according to the style of speech.

Vocatives and Imprecations

• Vocatives and imprecations are not essential components of clause structure.
• They are treated differently depending on their location.
• Example: “Lindsay, can I say something?”

Adverbials

The behavior of adverbials depends on their relationship to the rest of the clause and their location.

Heavy Noun Phrases

• Heavy noun phrases often have their own IPs.
• This is especially true when the subject (noun phrase) is different from the preceding one or when there is a heavy object.

Topics

The topic, theme, or subject is typically in the initial position in a clause and is often the grammatical subject. It is usually said with non-falling tones.

Comment

The comment or rheme is what is said about the topic and typically uses falling (\) tones.

Defining and Non-defining Relative Clauses

• Defining relative clauses do not have a separate IP.
• Non-defining relative clauses usually have a separate IP.

Parallel Structures

Parallel structures are likely to be separated by breaks if there are more than two, if they are heavy, if there is ambiguity, or if they may be unfamiliar.

Tag Questions

Tag questions tend to have their own IP, especially reverse-polarity tags. Constant-polarity tags tend not to have a separate IP.